


I Won't Let You Go

by boredom_resides_here



Category: Once Upon A Time - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Other, Regal Believer, night terror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 08:41:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3404285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boredom_resides_here/pseuds/boredom_resides_here
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place during 3B when Henry's memories are still gone and he has a night terror, they are forced to call Regina when every attempt of Emma's is met with fear and screaming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Won't Let You Go

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place sometime between the end of 3x17-3x19. Henry still doesn't have his memories back, Regina doesn’t have her heart, Hook's lips are cursed (although it isn't really a huge issue but just so you have an idea). Henry has a night terror while sleeping over at the Charming’s apartment and despite Emma having all of Regina’s memories she has no idea what to do.
> 
> Sadly I don't own any of these characters they belong to the producers and ABC.

It was midnight and Emma, her parents, and Hook sat at the kitchen table, while Henry slept on the couch, whispering softly about how to defeat Zelena. In the past two hours, since Henry had fallen asleep they still had nothing more other than incomplete theories on how to defeat her and why she cast the curse. 

“Regina says her magic is…” Emma trailed off when they heard the end table and lamp that was beside the couch make a crashing sound as it fell to the ground. Emma stood automatically crossing the small distance before the others could react, she knelt down beside Henry and gently ran her fingers over his face, although that only caused him to sweat more. She pulled away and instead whispered softly, “Henry…Henry you’re safe.” She glanced behind her at Charming and Snow watching nervously, Snow with both hands on her very pregnant belly, and Hook who stood behind them in with an equal amount of fear.

Emma had just turned back her hand gracing Henry’s and heard David move closer to the couch when Henry began to scream, his legs moving frantically in place as he tried to fight whatever it was threatening him.

“Emma…” Snow began before cutting off as another wave of screaming took over Henry’s thin frame.

The blonde merely shook her head and once again reached out to try and wake her son, “I can’t remember Henry ever having a nightmare this extre…Regina! We need to call Regina! All of these memories, New York, me keeping and raising Henry they’re all fake…Regina’s the only one who might have the slightest idea how to handle this.”

“Emma you can deal with this he doesn’t even know who Regina is as far as Henry’s concerned you’re his mother…his only mother,” David’s hand rested on her shoulder giving it a light squeeze.

Snow nodded behind them, “Your father’s right Emma, you’re his mother and that’s all that matters.”

Emma sighed her hand resting on his upper right arm as she gently shook him, “Kid come on wake up.”

Henry’s body was soaked in sweat, his screams hoarse from all the screaming he had already done, but still there. Emma sighed again resting her head, face down into the cushion tears slipped from under her eyelids, taking great care not to touch him, “Call Regina, Snow. Call and ask her to come.”

Her mother sighed but took her phone from her sweater pocket and stepping away from the group, dials the now familiar number, “Regina…”

The other woman sighs obvious contempt for the call at such a late hour, “What do you want Snow?”

The short-haired woman hesitates for a second too long and can hear blankets on the end rustling, “It seems that Henry is having some extreme form of a nightmare and Emma doesn’t know what to do. She was hoping...”

Suddenly the apartment is filled with purple smoke and as it fades Regina is standing there in her robe and in petrol colored, silk pajamas. The four of them turn to look at her in shock but Snow is the first to break the silence, “Regina we simply needed you to tell Emma how to wake him up. I never mentioned that we couldn’t handle this on our own.”

Regina scoffs as she walks towards the couch, “Trust me if Emma doesn’t have these memories then there’s no way any of you could have dealt with these night terrors.”

Emma moves so that there’s enough room for Regina to kneel by Henry’s head and watches as the woman reaches out to touch their son, “Stop! I did that it only makes it…” She stops though mid-sentence because Henry doesn’t scream or kick when Regina touches him, he becomes less restless. When Regina pulls her hand away, so she can balance herself as she scoots forward, he becomes agitated again but she quiets him in the middle of a half scream by pressing her lips to his head.

The power of the magic, as it radiates out from the kiss is strong enough to cause the dark haired woman to lean back on the heels of her feet. Emma looks at her shocked as David and Mary Margaret hug each other close as they realize just how close they came to losing one another.

Everyone is lost in finally regaining what has been lost for over a year, until Henry bolts upright, tears streaming down his horror-stricken face, he moves his hands clumsily looking for the connection he needs. He holds on with both hands when he finds the hands of the person who he was looking for, “Mom?” His tears fall faster now with the onslaught of memories.

Regina smiles a watery smile, her own tears falling as she lets out a laugh of disbelief and pulls him closer so she can get her arms around the only person who she would, and has, gone to hell and back for. Henry buries his face in the crook of her neck and feels hot tear against her skin, she holds on tight and rubs her arms up and down his back. “You’re safe now honey…you’re safe and you’re never going away again,” She speaks softly but in the silence of the room everyone still hears, as they watch the scene with their own watery smiles…even Hook.

“Promise momma?” His words vibrate against her neck as tears seep into her expensive pajamas.

Regina moves to sit beside him on the couch, her arms never letting him go, she pulls him into her side holding him closer than before. “I’m never letting you go away again…I promise,” She mumbles this promise into his hair before pressing a kiss there.

Henry settles against her and reaches and removes her right arm from around the front of his body with his left, he plays with her fingers as silent tears continue to roll down his face. “Can we go home?” He asks the question shyly, his attention still focused on her fingers.

The other four people in the room, who Regina and Henry have actually forgotten were still in the room turn at that question and Emma steps forward, “Kid we have to beat Zelena first before we can talk about going back to New York.”

Regina presses another kiss to Henry’s head and pulls him closer, when she speaks her voice brings Emma back to the beginning when they both hated one another and her face is hard, “I think he was talking about his home here Ms. Swan, his real home.”

Emma nods dumbly and opens her mouth to apologize when Charming cuts her off, “It’s already one in the morning you guys could both just stay here.”

“Emma and Henry’s beds have fresh sheets on them and it’d be no trouble to have you stay over,” Snow insists.

“I don’t want think I can sleep here and besides mom and I have a ritual, right mom?” Henry softly asks as he glances up at Regina.

“You guys have a ritual?” Emma leans forward from her spot in the chair across from them, wanting to learn as much about mother and son as possible.

The mother and son who are currently cuddled against one another nod, “Henry used to get these all the time when he was younger he would never want to go back to sleep so we would make pancakes with apple an cinnamon and eat them in the family room while we watched his favorite movie and then fall asleep on the couch.”

“Then the next day we’d go for ice cream, play a ton of Xbox, we went to the movies sometimes, or the beach if it was warm enough,” Henry smiled clutching his mom’s hand again. “We filled the day with happy thoughts so they wouldn’t come back that night.”

“Is that why Henry was absent sometimes from school?” Snow asked as she sat in the chair that Charming had pulled out for her.

Regina rolled her eyes but her voice held no contempt, “He didn’t get much sleep those nights Snow so yes I would let him sleep in and then we would have a day of fun.” She glances down at Henry now and wipes the tear track away from his face before pressing a kiss to his forehead and smiles, “What do you say we go home?”

Henry nods and stands still holding tightly to her hand she leans down slightly to whisper something in his ear and he glances up at her with a look of clear shock, “Really?”

Regina nods, “Go ahead and ask.”

Henry gingerly lets his hand slip from her warm hand and walks over to Emma, “Would you like to come spend the night with us and maybe spend the day with us tomorrow?”

The blonde haired woman looks up stunned that this is even being offered, especially after tonight she has made so many arrogant comments that she’s honestly surprised Regina is even offering this chance to learn more about their little family. “It sounds like something you and your mom do and I don’t want to get in the way of that Kid, but it was nice of you…both of you to invite me,” She says glancing from Henry to Regina.

“Honestly Ms. Swan we wouldn’t ask you if we didn’t want you to be there and I’m sure your parents and Hook an figure out a rough game plan now that we all have our memories back, if anything we can meet tomorrow night at my house.” Regina reasoned and her face softened and her smile widened when her son wrapped her arms around her waist.

“Yeah now come on mom we want to watch the movie,” Henry said grabbing her hand and pulling her up.

Emma smiled hesitantly, “If you’re sure…”

“We are,” The dark haired woman responded before a wave of purple smoke filled the apartment once again.

Henry stayed as close to his mother as he could and when they settled down for the movie it was Regina who he cuddled against, while Emma sat cross-legged on the chair next to them. Henry had, as Regina had silently predicted, picked out “The Avengers”. They ate their pancakes in silence and thirty minutes after Henry had finished he fell asleep, his head resting on his mother’s lap.  
Emma watched as Regina kept a protective arm over his body, her hand holding his. “So this used to happen a lot?”

“Enough that Henry and I actually became afraid of sleeping I had to take him to Whale which really there’s no medication only techniques,” Regina shrugged turning her gaze to Emma, “It’s when this little ritual was officially enacted.”

“I’m sorry about what I said tonight I didn’t mean it…just kind of came out ya know?” The other woman asked nervously she’s made a lot of mistakes with Regina but saying that she would take her son back to another city, in another state after the other woman had just woke him from the horror he was fighting in his sleep, well that had to be the worst. “Either way though you’re an amazing mom to him and I really should be thanking you for that more and I’m sorry I never have.”

Regina runs her hand through Henry’s hair smiling slightly when he lets out a sigh of content and snuggles deeper into the couch. Regina pulls his favorite blanket over his shoulders and whispers so softly that Emma can hardly hear her, “Just don’t take him away from me, or threaten to. I love him more than anything, even without my heart obviously and I can’t go through it again.” 

“Never Gina,” The nickname slips from her slips before she can help it but the look of surprised happiness from the other woman makes it all worth it. The next words out of her mouth surprises both of them even more, “We’re a family now and family sticks together.”

Regina grins at her as the credits roll through, “You can go upstairs if you want the guest room is made up.”

“Nope family remember? If this is what this family does when someone has a night terror then this is what we do,” Emma smiles and moves onto the other side of Regina, after grabbing three blankets from one left cabinet of the entertainment unit.

Regina grins as Emma drapes a blanket over her outstretched legs, covers her upper body with the blanket she knows is the other woman’s favorite; before laying down and draping the third blanket over herself, her personal favorite, and rests her head on the cushion as close to the other woman as possible.

“Night Gina,” Emma whispers softly looking up at the other woman and even in the darkness she can see the dark haired woman smile.

Regina grabs Emma’s hand with the other hand that isn’t holding Henry’s, “Night Em.” Emma squeezes the hand in response, her own smile forming on across her face before sleep overtakes her.  
When they wake up they spend the day as a family, they go to Granny’s for breakfast before Regina surprises Henry with the Comic Book store and proceeds to buy him more than enough comics, and when Emma expresses shock Regina simply shakes her head and explains that it’s something they both enjoy and she’s fallen behind in the past year. They spend the rest of the day reading comics and playing his new Xbox game, which Emma was shocked to learn was another activity that Regina enjoyed playing with their son, and eating pizza.

**Author's Note:**

> First OUAT fanfic so I hope you like it! Any mistakes are all my fault and I typed this in word so when I copy and pasted it I had to add a line between the paragraphs so there might be some mistakes there too.
> 
> Thanks for reading! :)


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